Wellens follows Deacon out of Lions' den

Paul Wellens is out of Great Britain's crucial Tri-Nations match against Australia on Saturday with medial knee ligament damage, a second savage injury blow to the Lions' hopes of qualifying for the final following the loss of Paul Deacon with his serious facial fracture.

Britain must therefore select a new full-back and scrum-half for the game at Hull that they must win by at least three points to reach the Elland Road final, though they are increasingly optimistic that Brian Carney will recover from the latest twinge in his troublesome hamstring.

Wellens has become an automatic full-back selection in eight consecutive appearances since being given his chance by an injury to Kris Radlinski before last year's Tri-Nations series, and with Radlinski again unavailable he was the only specialist included in Britain's 24-man squad.

Richard Horne filled in when Wellens limped off early last weekend against New Zealand but he is now expected to start at scrum-half. That would leave Leon Pryce as the only player in the squad with any recent experience at full-back, although Britain's coach Brian Noble will be reluctant to break up his potent left-wing combination with Keith Senior.

"We've discussed it and practised putting different people in various positions," Noble's assistant Jon Sharp said unrevealingly yesterday. "There's Leon who's got the experience of playing at full-back, and Richard is a multi-skilled player, so we've got a couple of options."

Perhaps significantly, Horne's Hull team-mate Gareth Raynor was withdrawn from yesterday's press conference, suggesting that Mark Calderwood may be preferred to take Pryce's position on the wing. However if Noble decides that Carney's hamstring represents too great a risk, then Pryce's switch to full-back would mean first caps for Calderwood and Raynor.

Australia have injury doubts over the Brisbane Broncos wing Brent Tait, who has a hamstring problem, and the prop Jason Ryles. Their coach Wayne Bennett is expected to select the experienced half-back pairing of Trent Barrett and Craig Gower, and omit Scott Prince.

Leeds have signed Prince's Wests Tigers team-mate Mark O'Neill, a 30-year-old second-row, on a one-year contract.